


Hold Me

by LeoOtherLands



Series: Woo Me [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alpha Hatake Kakashi, Alpha/Beta, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Because I want to use that tag again!, Beta Umino Iruka, Hurt/Comfort, I word vomited this, M/M, Never leave me alone at work with a pen and paper when I'm bored, POV Umino Iruka, References to mission injuries, The author was jacked on caffeine, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, you asked for a sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 09:28:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21177161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/pseuds/LeoOtherLands
Summary: Iruka wakes up on his couch with Kakashi Hatake, and wonders if he should kick the alpha out of his house before the annoying man thinks he's welcome to spend the night.





	Hold Me

**Author's Note:**

> So... I never intended to write a sequel to Take Care of Me, but I got bored again and this seemed fun. I honestly think I might keep going with the story in the form of little one shots. So, if you're enjoying it, there should be more! "shifty eyes" You know, whenever I get bored at work. "is bored at work every day"

I woke on my couch with a stiff neck and a stuffed-up nose, wondering why I’d chosen to fall asleep there, of all places. A grunt and an arm flopping, to dangle bonelessly over my chest, reminded me. Ah, yes. Kakashi.

The annoying alpha had barged his way into my house that evening, cooked me dinner, and then started spouting some nonsense about wooing me. Ridiculous. But, as sick as I’d been, it’d been nice to have someone giving me attention, and I’d stupidly given in to him and his alpha scent and let him cuddle me.

Brow furrowing, I stared at the hand in its fingerless glove, drooping over my side, a moment. Then my eyes flicked up to my living room in an attempt to gage the time by the feel of the house. It was dark, the air holding that late-night silence not even the hum of the refrigerator or the ticking of the clock, too far away to be seen, could fully disturb. After midnight, at least. An assumption which only reaffirmed the notion I should send Hatake-_san_ packing before he got the idea he was spending the night.

No way, no how was the man spending the night.

I squirmed around, under his arm, on the narrow space, to face him and tell him the fact, only to stop. And blink at his face. His _face_. Kakashi Hatake was asleep on my couch _without his mask_ covering his features. If that wasn’t something worth blinking at, I didn’t know what was.

Oh, sure, I’d seen his face before. Twice. No. _Once_, I mused, _only once._ But neither of us had been at our best that night.

† † †

The day had started the same as any other, with a crazy mess of a morning and afternoon at the Academy. One of my young, fellow betas had bit a couple of alphas because, in his own words, “They wouldn’t stop being annoying!”

My headache had started right then because trying to explain to a pre-_genin_ why he needed to use his beta pheromones to defuse situations with alphas, instead of biting them for being twats was… Well, sometimes _I_ still wanted to bit alphas for being twats, so it wasn’t an easy thing to do. At the end, I was sure I hadn’t convinced the infuriated beta, and when he later headbutted an omega, it became painfully clear how little I’d gotten through to him.

“We talked about this!” I scolded.

He only scrunched up his face, folded his arms over his chest, and said, “We talked about alphas, you never said anything about omegas.”

Leaving me to stare at him, flabbergasted, with my jaw unhinged in one of those, oh Sage preserve me moments.

My head was throbbing by the time I arrived at the missions desk, and having to mediate an altercation between two alphas, one of which was trying to get through the tail-end of his rut, and one who was just being an ass, didn’t help matters. By the time it was done, I really did wish it was socially permissible for adults to bite other people.

_Humans were so irritating!_

When the last of the missions had been assigned and the reports filed, my migraine was a blinding pulse behind my eyes, and I knew I wasn’t going to sleep that night. I’d already preformed a simple healing _jutsu_ and felt no relief. Leaving me to shuffle papers around the desk and wonder what to do with myself. The thought of going home and tossing and turning the night away wasn’t very appealing.

Still, I was about to give in, go home, and do just that, when my eyes fell on a mission slip I’d pushed aside for the next day. A request for comfort beta from the _Konoha Byōin_. A c-ranked mission, the kind of thing given to bored _genin_ to keep them out of trouble. But then, I was a man with nothing better to do. And, at least, taking someone else’s mind off their discomfort would help me forget my own.

Groaning, I gathered up my things and the mission slip and headed off to the Tree Leaf Hospital. I’d done a few stints as a comfort beta before, hell, most betas _had_, so it was easy to check in, grab a list of room numbers where a beta had been requested or was thought to be beneficial, and head off in search of a likely human to help relax.

I was frowning at my list, trying to decide which hallway to take, when an aggrieved, slightly affrighted squawk, hurried footsteps, and a door slamming caught my attention. Leaning over to peer down a passage, I just caught sight of another beta scurrying away in the opposite direction.

“What the shit…” I murmured. Only to jump at a sigh from behind me. Turning my head, to glance over my shoulder, I found yet another beta there. The _Iryō-nin_ Kitō, one of the surgeons at the _Konoha Byōin_ I knew well. We’d fucked a time or two. Or, three. Or… twenty. I couldn’t really remember.

“He did it again,” Kitō said with a shake of his head.

“Did?” I queried.

“One of our difficult patients. An alpha who got cut up pretty bad on his last mission. He can’t seem to sleep because nightmares keep waking him up, but every time we send him a beta…” He trailed off and shrugged, as if to say, well, you saw what happened. Then he cast me a considering look. “Are you working tonight?”

I groaned, already seeing where this conversation was headed. “Yeah. I didn’t think I could sleep.”

“Do you think you could give it a try?” Kitō asked. “I think you could handle him, Iruka.”

“Sure,” I returned, rubbing at my forehead to relieve the tension settled behind my eyes. “I can whip an errant alpha into shape for you.”

My fellow beta nodded and started away. Only to turn and say over his shoulder, “Oh, and Iruka?”

“Yeah?”

“Try not to hit him.”

I quirked a grin at that. After all, Kitō knew how I liked to play rough, sometimes.

Then my grin fell off because there was nothing for it but to go see what alpha had been giving the medical _nin_ and betas such a hassle. I opened the door on a room where the lights had been turned down. A disgruntled lump on the bed with his back to the door was the only sign of my assignment.

But, as soon as the light from the hall fell across him, he sat up to snarl, “I thought I told you to leave!” And… then he was blinking at me in befuddlement. “Iruka-_sensei_?”

And I leaned on the doorframe, arms and ankles crossed, because this was a situation I could smirk at. “Well, well, well, Kakashi Hatake. Who would have thought the man who gives me a hard time at the missions desk would also be one to harass the medical staff?”

He just growled at me, pushing his mussed silver hair out of his face. In his hospital gown, without his mask or gear, he looked like a little boy, up in the middle of the night. Which was practically what he was. “What are you doing here, Iruka?”

Continuing to grin, I unfolded from the doorframe. “Working. I’m your new comfort beta.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Humph,” I made the amused sound, kicked the door closed, and went to the chair by his bedside. “Oh, yes I am. And if you think you can mess with me, you’ve got another thing coming.”

He almost seemed to recoil from me when I sat down. His face tight and the blankets clutched in his lap. One of his hands was newly bandaged, I saw. And it was trembling.

“Honestly,” I snapped, “if you can’t sleep, you should let someone take care of you. The less you rest, the longer you’ll have to stay here. You’re acting like a child, Hatake.”

“I can handle my own shit!” he tossed back at me.

“Sure, you can. That’s why you’re up at one in the morning, antagonizing betas.” I accompanied the words with the release of my pheromones. A slow seep of that light, airy, almost not there, yet strangely sharp scent, which worked equally well on alphas and omegas. Calming them and easing physical pain, too, if what I’d been told could be believed. Though I was no where near that talented, I’d even heard of weaponized beta pheromones being used to immobilize whole teams of alphas and omegas. Making them go placid and stupid, and proving the fact betas were more than the comfort creatures we were often portrayed as.

He jerked when he scented my pheromones, drawing back, as if to escape them. “Don’t do that!”

Already frustrated and with a pounding headache still sending shoots of pain through my senses, I leaned forward, following his retreat. An edge of menace creeping into my comfort scent. “Do _not_ make me slap you with a paralysis _jutsu_, Hatake. You _know_ I will.”

The man deflated because he _did_ know. It wouldn’t be the first time Kakashi had pushed me too far and I’d dropped him to the floor to teach him a lesson. He sat a moment, breathing, his hands clenching and unclenching on the blankets pooled over his thighs. Then he looked up at me, his eyes shimmering and watering.

My rising anger petered out at the sight because I knew that look. That was how a man looked when he was crying and doing his best not to show it. I hadn’t thought anything could make the Copy _Nin_ cry, making me wonder just how bad his mission had been.

“If you’re not going to leave,” he growled, “could you stop that fucking comfort scent, and just hold me?”

The request wasn’t an unusual one, I heard it often enough, just in the course of a normal day, to make it barely an aggravation. But it normally came from omegas. Having alpha Kakashi Hatake ask me to cuddle him was more than unexpected. It was downright shocking. But I shock that feeling off with some aggravated mutters and shifted my place from the chair to plop on the edge of his bed. “Well, scoot over. I don’t feel like balancing on the edge of your hospital bed all night, Hatake.”

The man actually seemed startled I was acquiescing to his request, but after a moment of staring wide-eyed at me, he did what I asked. Moving to the other side of the bed and laying there, stiff, waiting to see what I’d do.

_Sage, the man was annoying!_

Not shy about it at all, I threw one leg over his hips, draped an arm over his chest, and tugged him flush against me, even as I pressed my nose to his neck. If there was one thing any beta knew, it was neck scenting had a positive affect on omegas and alphas alike, if done correctly. It relaxed them and made them feel safe and secure.

Whatever Kakashi felt, he shuddered, held still a moment, then did another odd thing, rolling to face me and shove his face into my neck. He breathed my scent, as though I hadn’t shut down my pheromones. Making me frown.

_What an odd alpha._

But he was behaving, so I let it go, staring glumly at the curtains pulled over his window, until I realized his breathing had gone soft and even, and his body gone slack in my arms. I peeked down at him, to discover he was asleep, his pale eyelashes resting on his unmasked cheeks. It was standard practice to spend the night with those suffering nightmares, in case they woke up and needed further comfort, so I had plenty of time to lay there, considering him curled against my chest. A contrast of little boy’s face under an old man’s silver hair.

I watched him sleep for a while, then I tucked his head under my chin and shut my eyes. Strange as it was, my migraine had let up, and I was able to sleep.

† † †

Remembering that night spent comforting Kakashi made me really look at the man on my couch. In sleep, his face had gone back to how it was that other night. Vulnerable. And strangely young. Devoid of droll expressions and cockiness and mask, altogether, he looked… Well, lots of things. But downright attractive and kind were some of those things. And, he was holding me, instead of the other way around. A rare occurrence for a beta.

_Damn, irritating alpha._

Still, I reasoned, studying the beauty mark under his lip, what was the real harm in letting him stay the night? I’d already made it clear there’d be no sex, and he knew better than to cross me, sick or not.

Making a rumbling sound of contentment, I burrowed deeper into him, and scented his neck. Interestingly, he was comfy, in addition to being annoying. I was drifting back to sleep when a thought crossed my mind, making me smirk.

_Woo me, huh? Just try and woo me, Hatake. This beta isn’t easy to catch._

**Author's Note:**

> This salty ball of angst and glitter is an original fiction author and fan fiction writer, who literally lives for comments and reader interaction. Even if this is nothing but inarticulate vowel screams, lol. He exist on a flotilla of social media, separated into a wide array writery things.
> 
> If you are crazy enough to want to see what I'm writing on any given day, and maybe try tempting me into writing something specific, feel free to join me in my personal writing Discord [Midway](https://discord.gg/jsQw96p), or friend me on Discord at LeoOtherland#7066 if you would rather chat one on one.
> 
> On Facebook I can be located on my [author page](https://www.facebook.com/LeoOtherland/) for all things original fiction, or in the [AO3 Armada group](https://www.facebook.com/groups/601270063618951) for all things fan fiction.
> 
> On [Twitter](https://twitter.com/RoseOfOtherLand) or [Tumbler](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/leootherlands) I primarily run with the fan fiction crowd and I seldom post and/or tweet anything, but if you want to drop me a line, I am always up for a chat.


End file.
